Score one for the kids Winding Woods woman overcomes adversity to help children BY MICHAEL ACKER Staff Writer PHOTOS BYMICHAEL ACKER Clockwise from top right: Winding Woods Apartment Resident Jacqueline Butler helps a child with a crafts project at the complex's new basketball court. Butler has taken on the role of unofficial supervisor of the neighborhood children who play there after school. Residents play at the new basketball court. Several young adults and teenagers in the community will act as coaches and referees for the free league Butler has planned for the summer. Butler watches over the children playing. SAYREVILLE - Residents have taken to calling her the mayor of Winding Woods for her work with neighborhood children. But for Jacqueline Butler, she is just trying to meet the needs of the community. "I am looking to get the [basketball] court fixed and I am trying to keep it clean and get the children united together," Butler said. "I am sick and handicapped, but I am still working." Butler, originally from Linden, relocated to Sayreville a year ago to be closer to her doctors in New Brunswick. She has had a tumor removed from her head, is partially paralyzed, has lupus and vitiligo, a chronic skin disease that causes the loss of skin pigment. Nonetheless, in her time at Winding Woods, where she lives with her three children, Butler has been supervising the children who play at the new basketball court, built last year by the developer of the apartment complex, Hillside Estates. There are issues of safety and aesthetics, and the complex is vulnerable to drug activity and property crimes. Butler is raising concerns about the need for additional security services and lighting at the site. "They need to beef up their security," Butler said. "After the children get out of school they go crazy." More than 130 two-story apartment buildings make up the Winding Woods complex off Bordentown Avenue. The community of garden apartments boasts a toddler playground with a basketball court, an onsite bus stop for commuters to New York City, over a dozen laundry facilities and 24-hour emergency maintenance service on its Web site. Butler voiced concerns about the community's original basketball court to the Sayreville Borough Council March 5, which is located in another part of the development. The problems she outlined with the courts include cracked pavement and broken backboard rims without nets. Borough Engineer Jay Cornell later told the Suburban that a recent site inspection confirmed the poor conditions of the original basketball court. He said he has sent a letter to the developer stating that repairs should be made. The Planning Board, he said, denied a request to allow additional lights at the new basketball court due to the potential impact on adjacent properties. Butler said however that additional lighting would improve the safety of the area. She added that 100-plus children go there after school and many are unsupervised. "Some of the children are doing things that they shouldn't be doing," Butler said. Maintenance manager Roger Valverde, who has been working at Winding Woods for 10 years, said that plans to improve the old basketball court are in the works and could begin in April. Addressing security on the site, Valverde said the maintenance workers look over the complex while on duty and that police patrol the area. "We try to keep everything clean and nice," Valverde said. Sgt. Sean O'Donnell, of the Sayreville Police Department, confirmed that police regularly patrol the area. "The police department would love to work hand-in-hand with anybody that wants to do good for the kids out there," O'Donnell said. "We are always open to working with the management. The management should stripe those courts and provide more recreation for the kids in there. There was an agreement that a playground be built, and it has been 15 years, and they just recently completed the [new] basketball court." O'Donnell noted that the other basketball in the complex is in poor condition. By his estimate, these two recreation areas are the only ones provided for the 5,000 or more residents in the complex. He added that idle children with nothing positive to do will often get in trouble. "Something like this is a great idea," O'Donnell said. "The PBA [Police Benevolent Association] is interested in helping them set up something positive." Butler said regular cleanup service is needed for the park, as well as signs that prohibit littering. She said she would like to see the children hired to do cleanup work. "I try to keep this place as clean as possible," she said. "If it weren't for me cleaning up, you would see debris everywhere." Butler noted that she once caught a boy from Old Bridge marking property with spray paint in the neighborhood, and she made him clean it up. Borough police respond promptly when she reports problems, Butler said, but often incidents happen too quickly for suspects to be apprehended. Butler, who brings out crafts and games for the children to play with on a daily basis, said she is planning to start a basketball league, complete with cheerleaders, for both girls and boys in the community this summer. Sayreville Recreation Director Gerald Ust told the Suburban that he discussed the league with Butler, noting that the apartment's developer is responsible for the upkeep of the basketball courts, as they are not borough property. He said a basketball league at Winding Woods would have to be operated by the property owner. "It's not borough property," Ust said. "We can't do stuff like that." Ust noted that the Sayreville Athletic Association runs basketball programs for adults and children at the middle school on Washington Road. If a league were to be run out of Winding Woods, a fee of $5 per child would cover expenses for the season, according to Ust. Butler said she would not attach a fee to the league, which so far has more than 50 children signed up. "I am not charging anything to play," Butler wrote in a letter seeking league sponsors. "This will keep all my young adults and children out of trouble." In a letter to Mayor Kennedy O'Brien, Butler said the programs run by the borough cost too much for many of the children in her neighborhood, who would need transportation to the recreation facilities since Winding Woods is far removed from the rest of the town. "Some of the parents do not have the funding to send their children to different things during the summer," Butler wrote. Butler said she is seeking contributions from local businesses and other sources, such as the New York Knicks. "If they could come, that would be good for the children," Butler said, adding that she tried the New Jersey Nets, but they said they could not help because of their anticipated move to Brooklyn. Dick's Sporting Goods store in East Brunswick provided Butler with a $50 donation and Old Bridge Drugs & Surgicals, on Perrine Road, has contributed $200 to the cause so far. Butler provided the Suburban with a list of equipment and improvements needed for the league. The supplies total approximately $300, not including restriping of the new basketball courts and shirts for the children. She said Sayreville police have agreed to provide shirts for the league. "I need trophies, I need bags to put balls in, I need more basketballs," Butler said. Butler said she will continue to do what she can for the children in her community. "I want to get out there and keep the children busy with cook-outs, basketball, baseball," she said. "Whatever they play, I try to come out for them."